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Loneliness in a relationship is a state where two people are theoretically together and yet have a sense of loneliness and living apart. This could be due to their specific personality traits preventing them from forming a truly close relationship, or it could be due to other factors including burnout of feelings or a long distance relationship.
What is loneliness in a relationship?
Loneliness in a relationship is being together, but as if apart – as if we are related to another person, and yet we feel as if there is no one with us.
Where does loneliness in a relationship come from?
Loneliness in a relationship is often the result of a crisis, as a result of which partners have moved away from each other, but for various reasons they do not decide to formally separate. Often the reason for postponing the decision to split up is joint property (or a housing loan taken together) and having children. The couple then explain that they are not parting formally for important reasons, and yet they live as if apart.
The reason for loneliness in a relationship may also be maintaining the relationship at a distance – the partner then participates in our life virtually, but he is not really there in important moments for us, which generates a feeling of loneliness, and even loneliness and frustration.
Loneliness in a relationship is also the result of a mismatch and inability to communicate your own needs to the other person. When partners fail to communicate, they gradually move away from each other and begin to live separately, although they are still a couple. They can plan a vacation together, buy an apartment together, talk about plans for the future and raise children together, but they feel lonely and really separate. Disappointment, frustration, sadness, insecurity and a sense of unfulfilling appear then.
Loneliness in a relationship may also be caused by the unpreparedness of one (or both) partners to build a close relationship. They then treat the relationship as a way to “wait out” and “fill time”, but deep down they wait for something better, “real”.
Also, the lack of concern for the relationship and accepting it as something given once and for all and not subject to changes and the passage of time may lead to the fact that partners begin to lack topics for conversation and common values. Then there is a feeling of incomprehension and loneliness. This often happens when one of the partners (or both) begins to put a career and earning money over family life. Such a person ceases to participate in the life of the family and does not have common topics with them, and perfunctory questions about what is being heard generate equally perfunctory answers. The other partner may then justifiably feel lonely in the relationship and be marginalized.
A relationship out of reason (because no one gets better) can also be a cause of loneliness in a relationship. Two people decide to be together, but they do not have any deeper relationship – neither emotional nor even friendly. They do not have common interests, they have nothing to talk about, and the family life created together may irritate them more than enjoy them.
Lack of time for the other person, lack of conversations and important moments spent together generate a feeling of loneliness, even if we are seemingly in a relationship with another person.
What does loneliness in a relationship lead to?
Loneliness in a relationship foreshadows serious trouble. Feeling unfulfilled and unhappy with your relationship, believing that you are really alone even though you are formally in a relationship is an effective recipe for a sad life and frustration. Partners who feel lonely in a relationship distance themselves from each other, stop talking to each other honestly and keep only a facade, appearances to give them peace, and not provide the environment with reasons for worry and gossip. In the long run, such a life is not only frustrating but also extremely stressful, which affects the psyche and health of partners.
It can also lead to their final separation, because they come to the conclusion at some point that it is better to be really separate than to pretend to be a compatible couple in front of each other and others, while they both feel lonely.
Feeling lonely in a relationship is an unequivocal signal that something is wrong and that the current situation should be changed as soon as possible. There are basically two outputs. You can try to save the relationship and change your attitude so as to communicate with your partner, present your reasons and needs to him and hope for a positive response from him. If this fails, it makes most sense to end a lonely relationship. This will give us the opportunity to reflect on the causes of the situation and open up space for building a new, more mature relationship. It should also be remembered that each of us is really alone, but also part of a larger whole, and if we do not understand this and if we do not love ourselves and our loneliness, each subsequent relationship will generate a sense of loneliness.